Carrie's Chicken {Recipe}

January 27, 2016

I'm sharing my family's favorite recipe with you. When I say it is everyone's favorite, what I mean is that Shepherd eats it, all of it, every time, and requests it. And he doesn't with anything else. (Except chicken nuggets, but since his stomach is made out of them, I don't count them).

The recipe got its name because I made it so often that some friends of mine just deemed it "Carrie's Chicken" and it stuck. For the record, I do not own this chicken. I just kind of pulled together different recipes from Pinterest and it evolved into what it is today.

Ingredients:

4 large chicken breasts
1/2 cup of white vinegar
dry italian dressing mix
1 block of cream cheese
1 box of your favorite pasta (Don't be boring!! Do something fun here! Seriously, bust out the wagon wheels or twists!)
**If you like to hide veggies in your kids food, feel free to toss up to 1/2 a cup of pureed cauliflower in with it. I didn't today, but I have before and no one knew **

In your crock pot (lined with a disposable liner of course...come on yall... don't make this harder that you have to!), put your chicken in (mine's still frozen), sprinkle the italian dressing on top, pour in your vinegar and plop your cream cheese right on top. (You can save the cream cheese till later if it makes you nervous, but I've never had it do anything funky.) Put your lid on and let it cook 6 hours on low or 4 on high.

When it's done, set your pot to boil to cook your pasta and while that's happening, remove your chicken to shred. I prefer not to wait for the chicken to cool and not to scorch my fingers, so my preferred shredding method is in my kitchen aid. You just plop it in hot, use your regular ole wedge blender and turn it on low. It bumps around a lot and then you get this perfectly shredded chicken. Watch it though, it can turn mushy if you let it go too long.

In the meantime, take a whisk and blend the remaining sauce and cream cheese to make it a smooth, creamy sauce.

Add your shredding chicken back into the sauce and blend it together.

After your pasta is cooked and drained, toss it with a little olive oil and then add it to your saucy chicken.

Serve and enjoy!!

Also, this makes a great freezer meal! I actually stocked my freezer before Shepherd was born (apparently back then I used a can of cream of chicken soup too.... I prefer it without it, but if it tickles your fancy, go for it!) with a couple of these. Just throw everything in a ziplock except the pasta! Thaw overnight in the fridge and then toss it in your crock pot in the morning!